"GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!" I yelled to him, grabbing my coat and bags and heading out the door. "I'll be home as soon as I can."
It was a cold, clear, Wednesday in late January. Mr. KK left the house at 8am, returning around 11:30am from an off-site work meeting to let Vito out.
Mr. KK entered the house, noticed some dirt footprints on the floor in the living room, and assumed it was his dad who had a key ad often stopped inside our house, and who often spent the days in our yard splitting wood, driving the tractor and stacking logs.
Vito was on the couch, tail wagging, waiting for Mr. KK to come and give him belly rubs. By this point in his life Vito was pretty much deaf, and we would have to walk all the way into the house before even realized that we'd come home. But today, we was wagging his furry little booty on the couch, wide awake.
Being the OCD neat freak that I love, Mr. KK decided to sweep up the muddy footprints so we didn't track it into the house and scratch up the floors.
It wasn't until he was back in the mudroom looking for the broom that he saw the back door of our house, busted open.
We were officially violated.
I broke all sorts of records driving home, happy that there was no traffic in the middle of the day. When I got home, there was an officer outside of our house and he helped guide me into the house, instructing me not to touch anything or disturb any evidence.
Evidence.
It's one thing to hear that word while watching TV crime shows, or see it while reading in my thriller books. But when there's a detective standing in your living room, wearing rubber gloves and swabbing ever surface in sight, it effing creepy.
It was like an episode of CSI...right in my living room.
Someone broke into our house in the 3-hour window we were away from home in broad daylight.
We knew it was a male by the size of the muddy footprints that went from our mudroom through our living room and kitchen, down the hall, and into our bedroom. It was a direct line, and you could tell he was on a mission.
He didn't find much in our bedroom. In fact, if he was after cash and jewelry like the police suspect, he was probably really disappointed that he picked our house. We never have cash (I've been known to have less than $10 cash on me for the last 20 years), and I'm not a big jewelry person.
He thankfully skipped right by Little Mister's room, so I could rest easy knowing there was not a stranger standing in the room where my son slept.
That bastard went through my drawers.
He did, however, come into "my room" - the back room where my closet, dresser and computer is. Some of my drawers were left open, and my little necklace tree - that held the 3 necklaces that I owned - was missing.
And then I was pissed.
He not only took my Tiffany letter "k" necklace that I'd had forever, he stole the diamond flower necklace that my grandmother had made for me before she died. And, even worse, he took the necklace that Mr. KK and Little Mister got me for my first Mother's Day.
In addition to the necklaces it seems our mid-day visitor also stole a few containers of gas that we had near our snow blower.
But that was it.
The worst part, was that Vito was home when this happened. But our poor old man was probably asleep on the couch when the stranger broke in, and Vito never heard him. Seeing that my room wasn't as disturbed as it could have been, my theory is that Vito woke up while he was still in the house, and he walked down the hall and surprised him. Because even though Vito could hear, he could still SEE, and if he saw a stranger in the house, he would have barked his little ass off.
It's almost a year later, and they haven't caught who did it. In fact, forensics was so backed up, tests weren't even run until the summer.
The day after the break-in Mr. KK installed cameras around the outside of our house. Our doors were reinforced. The precautions made me feel like we lived in a horrible city neighborhood, not in a house on a main road in a sleepy little town.
If you've never been robbed, let me tell what you what it feels like. It gives you the chills - literal goose bumps on your flesh - the minute you walk into your house. It makes you doubt - more than usual - if you've locked your doors, or set your alarm. It makes you feel like you're being watched, especially after they tell you they found footprints at the French doors off the kitchen, with boot prints facing the inside of your home.
But perhaps the worst part, was that if they had come a day earlier, Little Mister and my mother-in-law would have been here. I keep telling myself that if they saw a car at the house, they wouldn't have attempted a break in. The day they came. both cars were gone.
We don't have a lot of material things in our house that are worth money. Things we deem valuable don't usually have a price tag. However, the day someone broke into my house, invaded my privacy, went through my drawers, was the day that my peace of mind was stolen.
If Mr. KK thought I was a neurotic door-locker BEFORE this happened, he hadn't seen anything yet.
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